Southern Rites is a documentary by a photographer who exposed a small Georgian town’s prom segregation. Southern Rites briefly revisits that topic, but is really about how that town’s problematic views on race are reflected in two notable events: the sheriff campaign and a murder trial.
I felt like the director should have chosen one event and explored it thoroughly instead of trying to fully explore both. There are a lot of things to unpack, and race is just one crucial factor. There seems to be a prevalence of teen or extremely young adult pregnancy in that community, which isn’t explored. I’m not sure how old the sheriff’s daughter was, but she had a child, and the granddaughter of the murderer and the murder victim’s ex had a child. To ignore sexuality and gender roles or to assume that these elements are normal seems like a grave sin of omission. Viewers know that it is a Southern town filled with explicitly Christian signs, but is it also one of those communities that preaches, but does not practice abstinence? Probably, but we don’t really know.
For the murder story, all perspectives are explored, but I’m not sure why the director waited until the end of the documentary to hear from the murderer’s granddaughter. We already knew that she was biracial so it is not a big revelation that makes us rethink our position on the case. In contrast, the sheriff election is only explored from the black candidate’s perspective, which was an understandable mistake, but a missed opportunity and may have affected the election results, which we’ll never know because we don’t get everyone’s perspective.
Southern Rites suffers from the observer effect: subjects may modify their behavior because they know that they are being studied. The director is just as much of a character, although largely unseen, as anything that she is portraying, and because of her past work in that town, a polarizing presence. I hope that a hometown director explores this town though that person would probably have to move as soon as the film is released, especially since this community thinks that it is ignorant to be against the traitorous Confederate flag. Despite its flaws, Southern Rites is worth seeing because it proves that post-racial America is just a fantasy.